Monday at the Hug & Pint finds Aidan and Malcolm returning to Arab Strap after their respective sabbaticals with Lucky Pierre and Malcolm’s solo album. Bolstered by the full time involvement of Stacey Sievwright and Jenny Reeve on violin and cello the album navigates a journey which many of us have travelled: there are highs and lows; dark nights and false dawns; getting fucked with your friends and feeling fucked on your own; an album of love, loss, depression and hope; more musically diverse and schizophrenic than anything they had done before. As with many albums though, the real bastard was finding a title and there were many contenders: How Not To Meet People; The Cunted Circus; Loop; all relevant in their own way but never quite suitable – if the tales contained within the album were to be given an appropriate context it might as well be a pub. The Hug & Pint.